Our Hearts Fell to the Ground: Plains Indian Views of How the West Was Lost (Bedford Series in History & Culture) [Paperback]

Colin G. Calloway (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312133545 | ISBN-13: 978-0312133542 | Publication Date: April 15, 1996 | Edition: First Edition

This unique anthology chronicles the Plains Indians' struggle to maintain their traditional way of life in the changing world of the nineteenth century. Its rich variety of 34 primary sources - including narratives, myths, speeches, and transcribed oral histories - gives students the rare opportunity to view the transformation of the West from Native American perspective. Calloway's comprehensive introduction offers crucial information on western expansion, territorial struggles among Indian tribes, the slaughter of the buffalo, and forced assimilation through the reservation system. More than 30 pieces of Plains Indian art are included, along with maps, headnotes, questions for consideration, a bibliography, a chronology, and an index.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Colin G. Calloway is professor of history and Native American studies at Dartmouth College. Formerly he taught at the University of Wyoming and served as assistant director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library in Chicago. He is author of The American Revolution in Indian Country (1995), The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800 (1990), and Crown and Calumet: British-Indian Relations, 1783-1815 (1987). Calloway has also written articles on the Plains Indian history and edited several collections of documents, including The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America (Bedford, 1994).

Product Details

• Paperback: 226 pages
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's; First Edition edition (April 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312133545
• ISBN-13: 978-0312133542
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting primary source account, November 7, 2005

By 

Thomas W. Robinson (Dayton, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Our Hearts Fell to the Ground: Plains Indian Views of How the West Was Lost (Bedford Series in History & Culture) (Paperback)

I was assigned this book as part of a class on the Old West. This is a collection of writings by Native Americans of their experiences of "how the west was lost". More than that, though, it gives an idea, from the Native Americans' experience, of how they felt about white people coming, treaties, their changing way of life, and more. An interesting read and certainly gives a new perspective to the history of the West.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, informative essays on the other side of "Westward Ho", July 26, 2011

By 

R. D Johnson (Cedar Ridge, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Our Hearts Fell to the Ground: Plains Indian Views of How the West Was Lost (Bedford Series in History & Culture) (Paperback)

Covering the plains period from around the mid 1700's to the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, this is an excellent collection of Plains Indian essays, mostly taken from oral histories recorded in earlier publications, but very well organized. Each essay has an informative preface that sets the context of the essay and fills in a lot of historical background information, and the essays are followed with an extensive list of bibliographic notes. A non-Indian myself, I learned a number of American Indian terms and concepts I had occasionally come across but never understand before ('counting coup', what's a 'Wohaw', etc.)

I'm not a student though, just a curious reader, and still found this book delightful to read. I didn't sense a pro-Indian (or anti-Indian) political stance, or any idealization of the American Indian. For example, there are essays here covering the constant warfare and hatred (and occasional peacemaking) among the different tribes. It correctly notes that the Buffalo were already in decline due to the introduction of firearms to the Indians well before the white hunters started their own buffalo hunts. However, as you read the essays, it's hard not to sympathize with the Indian essayists, and feel the same poignant loss and bewilderment they felt as their old ways of life disappeared under forces beyond their control. When I was a student, I learned how the West was won from my U.S. History textbook. Now I have a better understanding of what was lost as well.